“Most famously, the fairies were wrongly fingered as the chief suspect in the disappearance of Bridget Cleary, a 26-year-old cooper’s wife, in 1895. According to the transcript from the Irish Crime Records, which is kept in the National Archives, she went missing on the night of March 15. She had been killed by her husband Michael Cleary, her father Patrick Boland, her aunt Mary Kennedy, her cousins Patrick, William, James and Michael Kennedy, and John Dunne, and two men named William Ahern and William Simpson, and her body secretly buried. One week later, after an extensive search, her body was found by police about three quarters of a mile from her house.“After Bridget became seriously ill, her family said that she had been abducted by the fairies and replaced with a fairy changeling. To drive the changeling away, they tortured her over a number of nights. Bridget died of her injuries. It was a most extraordinary and unusual case, particularly because folk custom and legend about fairy changelings clearly indicated that fairy changelings should never be harmed, only threatened: if the fairies had the real person with them, they may retaliate harshly if the humans harmed the changeling they had left behind.”

There is nothing I like more than seeing ghosts caught on tape. I discovered a gallery of ghost photos submitted by visitors of the Whaley House Museum in San Diego, CA. Below are my favourites. See the full online gallery at the Whaley House Museum.

“Clad in flowing black robes, the Dullahan has no head on his shoulders. He carries it with him in his hand, and because he is endowed with supernatural sight, he will hold the head up high. This allows him to see great distances, even on the darkest night.

But beware watching him pass by. You’ll be punished by either having a bucket of blood thrown in your face or you might be struck blind in one eye. The biggest fear of all, however, is if he stops wherever you are and calls out your name. This will draw out your soul and you’ll no longer be among the living.

Unlike the Banshee, which is known to warn of an imminent death in certain families, the Dullahan does not come to warn. He is a definite harbinger of someone’s demise and there exists no defence against him – except perhaps, an object made of gold. For some reason, the Dullahan has an irrational fear of gold and even a tiny amount may be enough to frighten him off.”